Andrew Zimmern Reveals the Surprising Twist to His Final Conversation With Anthony Bourdain

Anthony Bourdain's life and legacy was fervently celebrated this week when he received posthumous Creative Arts Emmys and was remembered in a televised "in memoriam" segment. Now, his dear friend and fellow television food adventurer Andrew Zimmern has shared the details of their final conversation, which was surprisingly uplifting — and had a sweet twist.

“He was telling me about pursuing my own happiness and he gave me his long sort of speech about it, that I deserved to be happy and I was like, ‘That is so great, where did you get that little nugget?'” he told People. "I had said the same thing to him about five years earlier, which is great because sometimes you even know things yourself but you need to have a friend repeat it back to you... Everyone wanted to be around him and he was just a symphony of a human being.”

That's the same memorable word Zimmern used to memorialize his friend on June 8, the day of Bourdain's passing in France.

Andrew has been known for years as the guy who eats all the weird things on Bizarre Foods, but his brand new television series is very different. He's the star of Food Network's Big Food Truck Tip, which finds him roaming the United States to find the most deserving food truck entrepreneur to gift $10,000 to help their business.